Jimmy Peers
Personality Able to put on a basic veneer of respect and consideration when he has to, at his heart Jimmy is a true sleaze. In his life he used others to advance his own self-serving agenda, making him naturally suited for the life of a guileful walking corpse. He knows a lot and can converse at length about any manner of conspiracy or esoteric theme, from unexplainable phenomena to the death of JFK to the sorts of things that are /actually/ going on behind the thick veil held up in front of the eyes of mortals. He dearly loves blowing peoples' minds, as it give him a sort of power trip. He's lived far too long to be a fool, however, not that he lets everyone know just what they're dealing with at first glance. The shaggy-looking exterior hides a real monster. tl;dr He is /really/ asking for it. Sheet Attributes Willpower 7 (-4), Disciplines: Fortitude 1 (-5), Protean 3, Animalism 1 (-5) Conscience 1, Self-Control 5, Courage 4 Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3 Charisma 2, Manipulation 4 (-10), Appearance 2 Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 3 Abilities ; Talents : Athletics 2 : Primal-Urge 2 : Integrity 2 : Resistance 2 : Subterfuge 2 : Vigilance 3 ; Skills : Research 4 (-4) Specialization: Finding Connections (-1) : Stealth 2 : Melee 3: Hatchet (-4) ; Knowledges : Lore (Vampire) 3 : Academics (1950s-1970s) 2 : Culture (Inter-Clan, Midwest Native American) 2 : Occult 1 : Investigation 1 : Science 2 (-4) ; Specialties Research - Finding Connections: The long view comes easily to an immortal monster, and thus Jimmy is uniquely suited to scientifically weeding out red herrings while picking out leads in mountainous stacks of information. Backgrounds * Generation 1 : Jimmy's Gangrel bloodline stems from some rather unsavory types that perennially stalk the forests and hills of New England. He knows little enough about them, but his blood is not as weak as he might hope... * Library 3 : Jimmy has been hoarding books his entire life and well into the unlife: the habit is unlikely to stop anytime soon. In exchange for favors on behalf of Certain Interested Parties, this Gangrel has stored up a number of books, particularly old and painfully musty collections of Sensitive Material regarding Noddist and Clan lore, most of which is actually written in gloss on what would otherwise be mundane works. A few, however, hint at the existence of much darker, nastier tomes somewhere out there in the world. Unless pressed, he does not let anyone know about his collection. * Resources 2 : Insurance and veteran's benefits have paid off rather handsomely for Jimmy: as far as the government is concerned he is a venerable Korean War veteran, and USAA has been kind to him - no accidents, a hefty string of inheritances (no need to eat or drink) and a solid credit rating have left the old boar with somewhat comfortable means of living. Hell, it beats working. He lives out of an RV with custom-installed metal drapes that block out all sunlight, and the doors/walls are reinforced from the inside with extra locks and sheet metal, a light technical transport disguised as a mobile home. * Status 1 : Over the years, Jimmy has proven a stable investment of the Camarilla's time and effort. Although his presence in any city tends to be spotty at best, he has gained a reputation for sound judgment and reliability - those claws are handy, too. Merits and Flaws ; Merits ; Flaws History Jim Peers was born in the middle of the Depression in a backwater, dust-choked farm forty miles south of Indianapolis on August 14th, 1932. His mother, already afflicted with tuberculosis, wasted away in front of his eyes for the next ten years. Something about being surrounded by lifelessness even in the heart of his family hardened his heart; it was as if something in his head switched off, dimming the lights rather than look dead-on at the horrid situation into which he was born. Much of his early years were spent just trying to distract himself from the impossible grind of his existence - books, loose girls, drinking, marijuana, it all just orbited around him as he drifted through life. He grew up strong and well-used to hardship, keen and inventive, but his heart was sealed over with many callouses. In order to escape his situation he like so many other boys his age joined the Army. He shipped out to Greece not long after the tensions of the Cold War properly began, ending his service in a beleaguered Red Cross tent. Blood caked around his eardrums and stomach, leaving him with diminished hearing and digestive difficulties for the rest of his days - the last sounds he ever heard with clarity were the screams of his bugged-out platoon and the blaring of North Korean propaganda loudspeakers. After such a trial, the Army slapped him with a Purple Heart and an honorable discharge, kicking him out into the streets of Indianapolis. His struggles had only just begun - unable to eat much more than smoothies and rice, plagued by nausea and still raw from the horror of war, Jimmy looked for a way to retreat from the grind of a country that used him up and spat him out to die an invalid on the streets, and found it in a hippie commune deep in the mountains of Arkansas. The life of languid hedonism in the thick of the icy mountain forests suited him well, and he quickly adopted the demeanor and lifestyle of a prototypical hippie. The high-minded idealism was really just a front for him, less a change of heart and more an excuse to live the life of degenerate hedonism that came from life in that commune. Of course, as the years went by he lost his looks and his carefully-crafted charm, but cunning and resourcefulness rushed in to fill the gaps that age left in his persona. He began to gradually drift away from the commune, and by the time he was forty-two years old he had struck out for good by himself, a couple of brats with no social security numbers his only legacy. Because when he finally struck out on his own into the wild, he was never heard from again. Something was watching him as he grew more and more distant from his human compatriots. Something that slowly grew to understand his bitterness, his struggles to live and how somehow through all of it his ability to maintain the stubborn will to live. Wotehda Mina, full-blooded Santee and Kindred of the Gangrel Clan, swept down upon him, ended his life and changed his entire world for good. Known as Hungry Knife in English, he proved to be a cruel but helpful Sire. Dealing with the harsh realities of Kindred existence came easily to him, as he was quite willing to perform the ruthless acts necessary to maintain his unlife. Though like any fledgeling, the Beast that strained within him was difficult to control at first - three times it unleashed itself, and three times he became more and more like an animal It was not very different from the way he was living before, and the new conditions that were imposed upon him gave him a turning point of sorts. After all, he did not have to bother with human emotion once his heart stopped beating. Parting ways with his sire, he bought an RV and began roaming the country, hunting at truck stops and in national parks, only rarely heading into the city to indulge one of his few remaining passions - knowledge. After so many years of dead living, the transformation into the living dead lent him some perverse new curiosity as to the true nature of the previously-hidden world all around him. What was perverse curiosity turned into actual interest, then real, urgent need to look for the truth - the more he learned of those with whom he shared the night, the more urgently he felt he needed to find more knowledge to prepare himself against such monstrosities as Lupines, wraiths, the Fair Folk and practitioners of True Magick. So his dealings began - sidling up to the Camarilla in the early 1980s, he made a name for himself as something of a useful problem-solver for the Princes that ruled whichever cities he deigned to visit. Though by no means on the power level of a proper Justicar, he found ways to make himself useful nonetheless, particularly his knack for hunting out paths between and around the sensitive territories of the moon-beasts. Currying favors through grunt-work and dirty jobs, including a healthy mix of unlife-risking operations and blackmail gave him room to maneuver when it came to the acquisition of occultic and supernatural-related tomes. This Gangrel's will to live stemmed from his ravenous need to be aware of the dangers in the world around him, and with the patience of an immortal he began to gather ancient tomes with vampires' Latin written in gloss on the margins, audio reels and records with dictation concerning Masquerade-sensitive material regarding supernaturals. As technology progressed, cassettes, floppy disks, CDs and flash drives followed in close order, all gathered near the ingredients for a potent thermite charge in case complete deletion was necessary, fast. Secure in his wariness, he thought that there was nothing that could touch him once he discovered the keys to living successfully and quietly as a Kindred - when his unlife was changed forever. It happened that one evening not long ago, a certain contact met at a certain location under no uncertain terms - there was a book he needed to offload, fast, no questions and no repayment. Jimmy's hunger for knowledge may very well have proven his undoing, however. This was no ordinary book - it was one of those about which he had only heard whispered legends, scrawled glosses in the margins of musty, forgotten tomes by equally well-forgotten hands. Once he read, he understood why, and something of his soul died that very night. For he acquired nothing less than a true copy of the Pretanic Keys of the Maeljin Incarnae. The words he read were burned into his mind, and knowledge of the Wyrm took away a piece of his soul. He is currently the keeper, under a quiet, desperate onus that becomes increasinly difficult to hide with each passing night. The fact that the book is there, the fact that he has even decided to keep it has marked him forever. But he has come to St. Claire, having found at great cost that a Tremere cabal exists there, one that can possibly break the accursed item once and for all, lest it consume him forever... Playlist Advancement Advancement History Category:Character Archive